Clement of Alexandria: STROMATA (MISCELLANIES), Part IV, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 94

Chapter V.--The Greeks Had Some Knowledge of the True God.

And that the men of highest repute among the Greeks knew God, not by positive knowledge, but by indirect expression, [3253] Peter says in the Preaching: "Know then that there is one God, who made the beginning of all things, and holds the power of the end; and is the Invisible, who sees all things; incapable of being contained, who contains all things; needing nothing, whom all things need, and by whom they are; incomprehensible, everlasting, unmade, who made all things by the 'Word of His power,' that is, according to the gnostic scripture, His Son." [3254]

Then he adds: "Worship this God not as the Greeks,"--signifying plainly, that the excellent among the Greeks worshipped the same God as we, but that they had not learned by perfect knowledge that which was delivered by the Son. "Do not then worship," he did not say, the God whom the Greeks worship, but "as the Greeks,"--changing the manner of the worship of God, not announcing another God. What, then, the expression "not as the Greeks" means, Peter himself shall explain, as he adds: "Since they are carried away by ignorance, and know not God" (as we do, according to the perfect knowledge); "but giving shape to the things [3255] of which He gave them the power for use--stocks and stones, brass and iron, gold and silver--matter;--and setting up the things which are slaves for use and possession, worship them. [3256]

[3253] We have the same statement made, Stromata, i. 19, p. 322, ante, Potter p. 372; also v. 14, p. 465, ante, Potter p. 730,--in all of which Lowth adopts periphrasin as the true reading, instead of periphasin. In the first of these passages, Clement instances as one of the circumlocutions or roundabout expressions by which God was known to the Greek poets and philosophers, "The Unknown God." Joannes Clericus proposes to read paraphasin (palpitatio), touching, feeling after. [See Strom., p. 321, and p. 464, note 1.]

[3254] i.e., "The Word of God's power is His Son."

[3255] Instead of hen ... exousias , as in the text, we read on exousian .

[3256] None of the attempts to amend this passage are entirely successful. The translation adopts the best suggestions made.

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